I have been following a very low carb diet (usually 20 g or less a day) and doing intermittent fasting, eating 1 meal a day, for about 3 months now. I have tested positive for ketosis the whole time and only had 1 "cheat" meal, which was pad thai about 6 weeks ago. I have felt wonderful, never hungry, full of energy, and noticed a decrease in belly fat. My clothes were fitting better. I have taken a variety of vitamins and supplements. Generally a positive experience. I hadn't gotten weighed as the scale and I are enemies, and I was waiting to get weighed at my annual physical. I also had a full panel of blood tests and I was so excited to see how I had done, especially the cholesterol and blood glucose tests. Imagine my dismay to find out that I had gained 2 pounds, and my cholesterol numbers were through the roof. My LDL was almost 200 points, and my HDL, which was good at 66 points, was not enough to offset it. My doctor wants me on statins, and I talked him into letting me try 6 more months to see if I can get it down on my own. My blood glucose was normal but just barely, even fasting. I don't know what more I can do. I guess I can try more exercise, but other than that I don't have any bright ideas. I feel like I really failed, despite everything. I had a whole day of eating everything and anything I wanted yesterday and will get back to the program tomorrow. The only good thing is that since I don't drink any longer it was only a food binge, not an alcohol one.

if you order them online you can get them for as little as $1.25 a package and they are very filling and zero calories! I plan to replace some of the protein and fat I am consuming with them to get my weight loss moving again.

Try posting you what you eat daily and maybe we can spot the problems. Lowcarb doens,t work well for me unless I also count cals. You might be in the same boat. When I started this last jan . I went over my past diet journals spanning 18 years and decided my motto this time would be solutions not excuses. I went into it this time knowing for sure things would come up and the only way to fail would be to quite so I found solutions to the problems with the plan as they popped up. I encourage you to do the same. I hit goal this year and it felt great you can do the same.

One of the questions I have: are you currently taking any medications? Some can stall weight loss, so this could be contributing to the situation as well. Be careful here, and I am not a medical professional, but the ratio of your triglycerides to HDL is now considered the most important health marker for metabolic and cardiovascular health. Remember, after 3 months your metabolism is still adapting and your Cholesterol and LDL numbers are not necessarily the best indicators, as a metabolism transitioning to fat burning can exhibit higher lipid numbers in a blood draw in the beginning.

The fact that you feel good and your clothes are fitting better are good signs. Also, as madeyna says, you may want to post what you eat during a normal week, as sometimes things consumed can impact progress. In addition, it's not essential to do IF early on either as long as you manage your carb consumption and eliminate processed foods, including any type of low carb dietary garbage like Atkins or Quest bars.

That scale is so darn frustrating. Stick to your plan to ignore weight in pounds and focus on the wonderful benefits you listed at the start of the post.

A few ideas from your previous comments...we all come with the baggage of our previous Diet history and by the time we are 60, that's often a whole trunk full of less than ideal nutrition and wacky plans for our bodies. Your history of disordered eating may impact how your body reacts to one meal a day now, especially if consistently undereating. As others have suggested, list some typical days of foods, but in general, my suggestion for you would be focus on optimal nutrition and health. A quick check on your stats...you started LC in April, have you gained 2 pounds over that start weight? Or after a break? I donít want to focus on the scale either, but a bit confused by posts and stats.

Being a women over 60 makes it more difficult to lose weight (not impossible) but slower for most. Here is an article with some tips to consider: https://www.dietdoctor.com/top-tips...40#more-1189598. IF is still in this list, but note Dr Fung advises switching it up and most doctors in this piece are talking about 16:8 type plans, eating to hunger, not a relentless OMD whether or not hungry. You also added a fat fast, so reading between the lines, are you are really controlling calories with that one meal? In previous comments, you use coconut and almond flours and count net carbs, and may have "carb creep" for less than ideal foods. One of the simplest tips to try is only count total carbs, and basically eat meats, veggies and healthy fats. No nut flours, etc.

Weighing infrequently is good because it keeps us from freaking out at random noise that can happen due to fluctuations in water. But it's also bad, because if you happen to be a bit high or low on water on the rare weigh-in, the ability of random noise to give a false impression gets inflated.

Same question Janet asked, but what does gaining 2 pounds mean? Are your stats up to date, did you originally lose 10 pounds and gain back 2?

One thing that I find can affect the scale when I'm doing one meal a day is the time of day. If I eat early in the day, I'll weigh less the next morning than if I eat later in the day. If I weighed myself while eating three meals a day, and then switched to the same calories, but all at dinner, I'd probably weigh more the next morning as well.

I have been following a very low carb diet (usually 20 g or less a day) and doing intermittent fasting, eating 1 meal a day, for about 3 months now. I have tested positive for ketosis the whole time and only had 1 "cheat" meal, which was pad thai about 6 weeks ago. I have felt wonderful, never hungry, full of energy, and noticed a decrease in belly fat. My clothes were fitting better. I have taken a variety of vitamins and supplements. Generally a positive experience. I hadn't gotten weighed as the scale and I are enemies, and I was waiting to get weighed at my annual physical. I also had a full panel of blood tests and I was so excited to see how I had done, especially the cholesterol and blood glucose tests. Imagine my dismay to find out that I had gained 2 pounds, and my cholesterol numbers were through the roof. My LDL was almost 200 points, and my HDL, which was good at 66 points, was not enough to offset it. My doctor wants me on statins, and I talked him into letting me try 6 more months to see if I can get it down on my own. My blood glucose was normal but just barely, even fasting. I don't know what more I can do. I guess I can try more exercise, but other than that I don't have any bright ideas. I feel like I really failed, despite everything. I had a whole day of eating everything and anything I wanted yesterday and will get back to the program tomorrow. The only good thing is that since I don't drink any longer it was only a food binge, not an alcohol one.

Cholesterol: Frankly, I don't worry about that any more. The "old" paranoia about high cholesterol was faulty, in my opinion, and so many doctors are still behind the curve on this. My cholesterol is always through the roof, BUT....at least I have a progressive enough doctor who says that since my HDL is quite high (last time it was 85) and my triglycerides are fine, even though my LDL was high at 257, I requested that she do the VAP cholesterol test, which tests to find out the particle type. Small dense particles are not good as those pile up and create plaque and clog arteries...small dense particles form when you eat a lot of sugar and starches. Large fluffy particles are great because they move thru the arteries and bounce around and DON'T create clogs. So the VAP test showed my particles are the big fluffy type, and once my doctor saw that, she relented on the statins, which I refuse to take. But that insistence on statins come from doctors who don't understand the principles behind low carb/high fat eating. Amazingly, few of them seem to understand it all and they are still operating from out of date information from decades ago. Also, when you eat low carb and high fat, your HDL goes up (a good thing), as yours has done. So higher HDL will contribute to higher overall cholesterol. Duh! I suggest you get the VAP test for particle type to set your mind at rest. You might have to pay extra for it, but it's not all that much $$.

Weight gain: Here's the fact of it: Assuming you are eating just as you should, which from your description you appear to be doing, your "gain" of 2 lbs is WATER WATER WATER!!! Any of us can and do fluctuate in water levels on a daily basis. I myself can still go up 1.5 lbs literally overnight. It has to do with foods you eat, salt content, your dehydration levels (if you aren't adequately hydrated your body will tend to retain more water, and hence, weight can go up). I weigh myself every single morning and I go up one day, down the next. I spend more time than I'd like at every single pound I reach. I was recently in a 3.5 week "stall" of sorts where I just bobbed around in a 2 lb range of weights, yet I was doing everything exactly right with no cheats, and I also did a few 24 hour fasts along with my daily 14-16 hour fast between dinner and breakfast each day. Amazingly, after several of the 24 hour fasts my weight went UP the next day!!! After these often lengthy pauses in weight loss, I'll go down a bit more (rarely more than a half to one pound now), then there will be another long pause at one weight (together with the inevitable bobbing up and down). Weight never seems to keep continuously dropping as you "diet". In fact, I think it's a virtual impossibility.

What I've learned is that the human body puts up quite a fight to NOT lose weight. Weight is put on far easier than it comes off. And this makes sense, because otherwise the human race could die out too easily. You have fat cells full of stored fat, and when you burn off that fat the cell fills up with "placeholder" water in an attempt to maintain the status quo. After a time, the cell will release that water and it becomes rather like a deflated balloon, and that's when you'll drop some scale weight. You already lost the fat in that cell (a great thing), but the water has to flush out of it before you see the actual weight loss. And remember....that deflated fat cell never goes away, it's sitting there for life, just waiting for you to pig out again and fill it up with fat. This whole process is how people can report they have lost inches but not scale weight. You said your belly is flatter...so there you go, that has happened with you.

I used to make myself crazy with the scales, but to desensitize myself AND to understand what was really going on, I weigh myself daily, and there was a period of time when I weighed myself morning and evening as a test. I saw that I was capable of going up 1 to 2 lbs just between morning and evening. Was that a "real" weight gain? NO NO NO, it was not, it was water fluctuations. So I just picked a convenient time...for me it was after getting up in the morning, same time every day, and that's my "weight marker" for the day. SO....your 2 lb gain is a big nothing, don't let it worry you. Weight at any given time is just a momentary snapshot, so what you look for is a trend over time. Another thing: Your weight will be different on different scales. So you'll weigh differently on the doctor's scales. Just use your "base" scales to watch the trend, and don't fret over these other weight changes.

Exercise: I have lost a lot of weight without any exercise...just because it worked out that way this time. I love exercise for how good it makes me feel, but I'm often sporadic about it. I'm at a point similar to you right now, where I'm being totally "on plan" with no cheats, all is good in how I feel, but it's the devil losing any more pounds. I just keep getting stuck at one weight for ages and ages. I'm busy with work etc. right now and can't get to the gym, but soon I will be going back to the gym to "shake things up" a bit and burn more calories. My past experience has shown that doing SOME exercise...I especially like HIIT (high intensity intervals) on the elliptical at the gym works quite well to get weight loss moving downward again. It's about doing something a little bit different and changing your energy expenditures from what you had been doing. I feel fairly confident I can get my weight loss moving more quickly once I can get in some regular exercise.

I hate to see you feel discouraged and give up. You're in a GREAT place, you've just got to be very patient and keep being consistent with what you eat. Give this enough time to happen. You didn't put your excess pounds on quickly, don't expect them to come off quickly. Weight loss is rarely if ever as fast as we want it to be. Also, this is about changing your eating habits because what I've realized is that I can never again eat like I used to, not if I want to maintain my weight loss. It's a different way of life. But being the weight I want to be, fitting into my clothes, feeling good and having tons of energy and no stomach aches etc., that's worth so much more than letting food (especially sugar) control me as it did in the past. Ultimately, this is a mind game that you must win so that you keep your expectations realistic and don't allow yourself to get discouraged and quit before your goal. You WILL get there, but perhaps it will take longer than you want. Also, if you do give up, you can be fairly certain what will happen every time you step on those pesky scales!

I think you are doing fantastic...KEEP IT UP! Keep on keeping on, as they say! You'll get there!

hi-
it's okay to be disappointed, but now you have a decision to make. Are you going to eat in a way that makes you feel "wonderful, never hungry, full of energy" or are you going to fall into the quick weight loss trap and give up because it isn't what you expected? This is YOUR DECISION- yours alone. No one can make it for you- not the terrific people who wrote to you (and I think gave you excellent info and support) and not your MD.
Dr. Atkins wrote that it takes about 6 months for your blood lipids to change. I am one of those people whose numbers never improved. I was disappointed too- but I decided that this was how my body liked to eat and I'm doing this for the health gain, not the weight loss. Like other posters here I no longer believe in the cholesterol theory of heart disease, and will not take statins or other cholesterol lowering medications. I believe my MDs mean well, but they haven't been "properly taught" this new medicine. I learn from Gary Taubes, Dr. Westman, Dr. Eades, Dr. Eenfeldt, Dr. Fung and others who blog and make videos. I listen to podcasts and subscribe to The Diet Doctor.
This is not a diet for me. It's how I eat. I decided. Now it's up to you.
Good luck-
E